I have asked this question of some clergy and they never responded, but I wonder what happens to the soul of a frozen embyro,does it freeze until it is thawed and implanted in a womb or does it hang around waiting to be in the womb?
The baby born from a frozen embryo,more than a year after Katrina( or those frozen several years before they are used) when did their souls enter the body? I was under the impression that when the soul leaves the body that is death.
With no hard evidence to the existence of the soul, it is up to faith. Different religions give different times to the appearance of the soul. Did you have a particular religion in mind?
I once heard that the Bible links life to the blood. That would mean that a fetus is alive when blood appears (8 weeks?). YMMV
I also do not believe in a soul, but if I did go for that stuff, it seems to me that God wouldn’t bother to put a soul into an embryo unless it was destined to be born.
It is a bit absurd to base religious beliefs, such as when a soul becomes linked to a body, to scientific criteria, such as when an egg is fertilized. As such, this question can’t really be answered. (Nonetheless, many anti-abortion advocates do try to make this connection.)
There are a number of situations that are problematic with linking the moment of fertilization to the creation of an “individual” human being or the linkage of a soul.
Identical twins: Identical twins arise from a single fertilized egg. One must suppose that either these individuals share the same soul, or that a second soul is acquired at the moment the embryo splits. If the latter, which individual gets the first soul, and which gets the second?
Conjoined twins: Sometimes an embryo fails to separate completely, producing Siamese twins. If both of these twins develop a brain, it’s easy enough to put them in the category of identical twins above. However, sometimes only part of a second twin is produced from a partial split, resulting in an incomplete parasitic twin attached to the other’s body. If, say, only an additional leg develops (there have been people born with three legs), then does this leg have a soul? Sometimes the attached parasitic twin resembles a baby, never growing to adult size and never developing a brain. Is this different from an anacephalic fetus, which some would contend has a soul? Where do you draw the line?
Chimeras: These are probably the most problematic. Two embryos resulting from different fertilization events may fuse at an early stage of development, producing a single adult with tissue from what were originally two different individuals. If a soul is acquired at the moment of fertilization, does this individual have two souls? If not, at what point is the second soul lost?
soul:
1.the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2.the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come
the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
4 a human being; person
life:
1.the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
2.the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual
a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul
In my opinion, they are not the same thing, rather a soul tags along with life, it comes with it. It’s the part of life you can’t see, like in the third definition, it’s the emotional part of life, or in the second, the part of you that survives death (if you believe in an afterlife)
So rather, is the embryo alive? When does life begin? Well, if we knew that then we’d have the issue of abortion figured out long ago.
Most pro-life groups consider a fertilized egg the beginning of life, and i think about 12 days or so after conception most doctors would say the female is officially pregnant (the embryonic stage i’m pretty sure) and after the 10th week the embryo becomes a fetus. The heart and circulation actually begins 18-21 days after conception.
How is this answer your question?
how the hell should I know, it depends on your opinion when life actually starts. I don’t know when the embryos are frozen, i dont have time to look that up now sorry:D hope all this wasn’t completely useless
It has a soul if and only if it is plausible that it can grow biologically into a human being and either its mother has envisioned it as a child with personality, or there is at least one person who loves its mother and has envisioned it as a child with personality.
Even if it has a soul, it is often okay to end its existence. Personhood does not automatically convey an absolute right to life, despite arguments to the contrary.
Why isn’t proof of the existance of a soul a pre-condition of this kind of discussion? If you can prove a soul exists, then this discussion has meaning. If you can’t, then it’s all just make-believe, and there’s no point in trying to connect things that don’t exist with things that do exist. If you can’t even show that a soul exists in the first place, there’s no point in trying to argue about where it lives.
No. Those who are making the extraordinary claim it does need to come up with some pretty extraordinary proof. Until such times they do the question is settled.
Excellent points, and yet those who believe in a soul must decide at what point that soul becomes “linked” with the body. An all-knowing God could take care of the situations you described in advance, and since there is equally no reason to assume that birth has any connection to the soul (much less viability, which is only a function of human technology), what is a religious person left to do? Scripture isn’t much guide, except the part about “quickening”, and so I would probably have to go wtih **Paul **(the one in Saudi, not the one on the road to Damsacus ) on this one. Err on the safe side.
Of course, being an athesit myself, I have no such dilema.
Because this kind of discussion also is often brought in in relation to the ethical problem of when a “individual human life” may be said to exist, even when the question of a soul is not brought into it. Also, much of the political opposition to both abortion rights and stem cell research is based on the religious belief that a soul is acquired at the moment of fertilization. As such, the discussion has political relevance, even if souls haven’t been proven to exist.
I agree. A lot of discussions are like this, and I can’t imagine why anyone would think they can go anywhere.
When no can:
define what a soul even IS (in a positive sense) or DOES
provide evidence that it exists, ever
How can we debate when and where its present and when not? That’s just plain nuts.
The only sort of discussion one can have is based on “what established texts of relevation say about it” but even that is paltry since the abstract concept soul is something that developed throughout human history, some of it after those texts were written and thus not part found in them anyway.
) on this one. Err on the safe side.